Page 120 of One Wild Chance

You okay? Larissa said you left an hour ago. Where are you?

I start to reply, then stop. My knee-jerk response is to shut down. Keep my walls sky high, like I always have when things get complicated.

But after everything Mom told me, I have no excuses left. Jaxon is not my father; I know that logically, but something inside me still resists. It’s the same question circling in my head. Why’d my father bring me into this world if he didn’t want me?

I’m never going to get that answer, no matter how much I need it. Jaxon could tame my wild heart, and I want that so badly it scares me. But this problem is mine, not his. I’ve always gotten in my own way.

When I pull into Lucky Chance, the clouds are rolling in, thick and black. I step out of my truck, and the air smells like rain. I head straight for Sally’s stall without stopping to tell anyone where I’m going. One good thing about working on a horse farm is that when my feelings get tangled into a knot, I reach for the cheapest form of therapy around: a saddle. There’s not a single challenge in my life that didn’t become clearer on a horse.

Jaxon doesn’t know that James told me the news, or that I spent today with my mother, unpacking my parents’ complicated relationship.

My fingers move through the buckles on autopilot as I saddle her up. I don’t have a destination for this ride; I just need to move. To let go. To feel the ground under her hooves and the wind in my hair.

I swing my leg over the saddle and take off, even though the storm is bearing down on us. If I’m on a horse, I don’t need to answer Jaxon yet.

Sally doesn’t need me to point her to the back pasture because she could find it in her sleep. When we reach the open field, I nudge her with my heel, and she takes off. Within seconds, we’re flying across the grassy land, hooves drumming the ground as I blink against the wind in my face.

The rumble of thunder grows louder as the rain starts to fall, slowly at first, until it becomes a steady, soaking rain.

I have been so careful for so long. I don’t want to be careful anymore.

Chapter 35

Jaxon

I know something’s wrong as soon as I see the empty stall. Sally’s gone, Summer’s truck is parked next to the barn, and I’ve been all around the farm, looking for her. She didn’t respond to my texts earlier, which isn’t like her.

Earl ambles out of the broodmare barn toward the farmhouse. “Earl,” I call. “You see Summer anywhere?”

His brow furrows. “Took Sally out a little while ago. Not sure where she’s headed.”

There’s a low rumble in the distance. “In this weather?”

He tips his head back and studies the sky, dark clouds rolling in faster than a stampede. “Didn’t ask. But she was tearing across the field.”

“How fast?”

“Fast enough to know better,” Earl says.

Summer rides when something’s wrong, the same way I walk the fence line, just to get out of my own head. Worry twists in my stomach.

“James was here today,” Earl says as the first raindrops fall. He pulls the brim of his John Deere hat lower.

“I know,” I say. “It was about the will.”

Earl cocks an eyebrow.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing.” He turns back toward the barn and tosses over his shoulder, “Scout could use a ride, though.”

I know that’s Earl’s way of saying, Go get your girl.

“In this weather?” I ask.

He doesn’t even bother turning around. “Didn’t stop her.”

I hate it when that old man’s right.